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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28220871">Cook-King</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/rvspberry/pseuds/rvspberry'>rvspberry</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stranger Things (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bad Cooking, Billy Hargrove Lives, Billy Hargrove Tries to Be a Better Person, Comfort Food, Cooking, M/M, Not Beta Read, Physical Disability, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 03, Scars, cooking as physical therapy, learning to cook</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:02:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,247</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28220871</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/rvspberry/pseuds/rvspberry</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Billy starts cooking after his physical therapist recommends it to build his strength back up in his hands. To retrain his motor skills, and feel productive doing so. If he has a meal at the end of it, that’s good, right?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>109</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Cook-King</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I want to thank Drake for letting me ramble about my headcanon about Billy learning to cook and I had the whole fic essentially written so it made sense to just put it together into a fic! 10000% inspired by the amazing and hilarious piece of art <a href="https://juu-riin.tumblr.com/post/637910373938462720/inkedplume-said-that-billy-sucks-at-cooking">HERE</a>.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Billy starts cooking after his physical therapist recommends it to build his strength back up in his hands. To retrain his motor skills, and feel productive doing so. If he has a meal at the end of it, that’s good, right?</p><p>Because it’s not like Billy can work anywhere after he gets out of the hospital, barely healed from the hole punched into his sternum and the tentacles that had ripped up his hands. Steve rubs lotion into them at night, massages his hands and his chest so gently that it makes Billy proud of his scars.</p><p>Because, as Steve reminds him each time, “They prove you lived. That you saved everyone and stopped the Mind Flayer. You saved me, Billy.”</p><p>Even standing is a lot on him, honestly.</p><p>The first few times Billy cooks for them, it’s burnt and tasteless and even Billy can’t choke it down. He feels a little bad that Steve does, looks like he’s eating glass, but his boyfriend just smiles and thanks Billy for the meal.</p><p>One time in particular, he’s pretty sure he gave them both food poisoning since they switched off in the bathroom all night.</p><p>So Billy starts practicing more after that, while Steve is at work at Family Video. Billy actually tries tastes things and throws them out when they don’t work so he doesn’t have to watch Steve try to eat something terrible he’s made, because Steve will always say it’s good.</p><p>Billy doesn’t want flattery. He wants honesty.</p><p>And, like, practicing more is good for him anyway. </p><p>He has to take breaks pretty often, sitting in a chair in the kitchen next to the stove when he has something in a frying pan or a pot needing watching. He’ll even go lay down on the couch when he gets dizzy and his vision gets spotty, because his circulation is absolutely fucked these days. (He even has to lay down for sex because of it, not that Steve’s complaining.)</p><p>So Billy takes his time, and eventually he can stand for longer.</p><p>His cuts with a knife get better, less chunky and homemade and more professional. He gets more precise with them, and it comes easier with practice. That’s something BIlly didn’t really expect, because he’s spent his whole life with things coming to him easily. School had been easy, basketball, flirting, getting into girls’ panties and charming teachers and mothers. But cooking? Cooking he has to work at.</p><p>It’s… kind of cool, to see himself slowly getting better with each day that passes.</p><p>He spends a whole day cutting up onions. Steve comes home to him crying and freaks out, Billy unable to get a word in edgewise until Steve goes into the kitchen and sees all the onion scraps.</p><p>Everything he makes, though, Steve likes. He eats it without complaint. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert - he puts away food, absolutely uncaring of what goes into his mouth as long as it’s edible.</p><p>(...Or, like, if it belongs to Billy. Because Steve knows how to suck a dick, that’s for sure. Thanks Billy for the meal often enough with a blowjob that just a lick of his lips is enough to get Billy’s dick half-hard in his pants.)</p><p>But Steve isn’t a picky eater. And because he’s not a picky eater, generally he just thinks that everything Billy makes is great. Billy just wants to hear that something is <i>amazing</i>. That it’s fantastic. That Steve loves it, would love to eat it again. He wants to hear that it’s the best thing Steve’s ever eaten.</p><p>He tries a bunch of classic recipes that he finds from some recipe books at the library. The librarian, Mrs. Johnson, doesn’t give him a second glance when he places a few on the checkout counter. She even signs him up with a library card when he admits he doesn’t have one. She hears his name and just raises an eyebrow, quirks her lips into a little grin before it melts off once again to her usual stoic look.</p><p>But when he fails to get the response he wants with the chicken pot pie, meatloaf, and pot roast, he starts in on a lasagna.</p><p>He spends all day preparing because he makes a homemade bechamel in addition to the ricotta. He makes the tomato sauce from scratch with a little red wine and bay leaves he fishes out with a fork. Lots of garlic, onion, and herbs. A touch of black pepper and real parmesan cheese which took him going to the next town over just to find a block he could grate. He browns the meat, adds it to the sauce with just the slightest touch of sugar to take away the acid of the tomato sauce.</p><p>Billy’s learned so much about cooking.</p><p>He starts layering everything and pops it in the oven, and it’s finishing up when Steve does finally come home. He steps into the apartment and sniffs softly, eyes going wide.</p><p>“What’s… what’s in the oven?” He asks, and Billy tilts his head. Steve’s reaction is curious. Very curious.</p><p>“Lasagna. You okay, pretty boy?”</p><p>“Y-yeah, I’m fine,” he stutters, swallowing thickly. “I’m gonna go take a shower and change.”</p><p>“It’ll be ready and cooled enough by then,” Billy says, pressing a comforting hand to the small of Steve’s back. “You sure you’re okay?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Steve breathes, turning to press a warm kiss to Billy’s lips. “Can’t wait to try your lasagna.”</p><p>Billy makes a side salad and Steve picks at the salad enough that Billy is about to ask if Steve doesn’t like lasagna at all. But Steve seems to have worked through whatever is going on in his head and picks up his fork to cut off a small piece of lasagna before shoving it into his mouth.</p><p>There’s a pregnant silence between them, Billy half-resigned to hearing Steve’s tried-and-true <i>“it’s good, Bill!”</i></p><p>Then, Steve’s eyes widen, his chewing slowing to a halt. He looks down at his plate, up at Billy, and back at his plate before another forkful gets pushed into his mouth, and another, and another until his cheeks bulge with it.</p><p>“Woah, woah, woah,” Billy laughs, taking Steve’s fork from his fingers when Steve looks like he’s about to go in for yet another bite. “Slow down there, doll. You don’t have to force yourself to eat if you don’t like it.”</p><p>Steve shakes his head fast, chewing quickly and swallowing it down.</p><p>“No, Billy, it’s-” Steve looks up again and there are tears in his eyes. Billy’s mouth drops open in surprise. </p><p>What the fuck?</p><p>“It’s perfect,” he croaks, rubbing at his eyes. “It’s amazing. The best- best I’ve had in a long time, baby. It tastes just how my nonna used to make it.”</p><p>And Billy had been looking for that reaction, absolutely. There’s no doubt. But the emotion poured into Steve’s voice? He wasn’t expecting that.</p><p>Steve reaches out and grabs Billy’s hand, squeezing it after he takes the fork back.</p><p>“Billy. Thank you.”</p><p>There’s a smile now, curling the corners of those pink lips Billy loves so much. And he never thought it’d be lasagna that brought Steve Harrington down, but Billy tucks it away in his repertoire.</p><p>He considers the night a win, especially when Steve spends the rest of the evening giving Billy the most lavish, attentive blowjob followed by the best ride of his life.</p><p>Learning to cook might be the best thing he’s ever done.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Let me know what you think in a comment and consider leaving a kudo if you enjoyed!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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